Seraphina(25)

I leaned my head back against the bed, breathing slowly, trying to fend off an emotion so terrible I couldn’t bring myself to look at it.

For five years I had suppressed every thought of her. The Amaline Ducanahan of my childhood imaginings had been replaced by emptiness, a chasm, a gap the wind blew through. I couldn’t fill that space with Linn. That name meant nothing to me; it was a placeholder, like zero.

With this single memory, I’d increased my knowledge of her a thousandfold. I knew how a pen felt in her hand, how fast her heart beat upon seeing my father, how beautiful sounds moved her. I knew what she’d felt; I’d been her and felt it myself.

That depth of insight should have fostered empathy, surely. I should have felt some connection, some joy at discovering her, some warm, glowy resolution or peace or something. Something good, at least. Surely it didn’t matter which flavor of good?

She was my own mother, for Heaven’s sake!

But I felt nothing of the kind. I glimpsed the emotion from afar, saw how bad it was going to be, and squelched it so that I felt nothing at all.

I hauled myself to standing and staggered into the other room. My little timepiece read two hours past midnight, but I didn’t care whether I woke Orma up. He’d earned a bad night’s sleep. I played our chord and then played it again a bit more peevishly.

Orma’s voice crackled forth, unexpectedly loudly: “I wondered whether I’d hear from you. Why didn’t you come into town?”

I struggled to keep my voice under control. “You weren’t worried, I suppose.”


“Worried about what, specifically?”

“One of my grotesques was behaving strangely. I intended to cross town in the dark, but I never made it. It didn’t occur to you that something might have happened?”

There was a pause while he considered. “No. I suppose you’re going to tell me something did.”

I wiped my eyes. I had no energy to argue. I told him all that had happened: Fruit Bat’s strange behavior, the vision, the maternal memories. He stayed silent so long after I finished talking that I tapped at the kitten eye. “I’m here,” he said. “It is fortunate that nothing worse happened to you when the vision struck.”

“Do you have any ideas about Fruit Bat’s behavior?” I said.

“He seems to be aware of you,” said Orma, “but I don’t understand why that would have changed over time. Jannoula saw you right from the beginning.”

“And she grew so strong and perceptive that it was hard to get rid of her,” I said. “It might be safer to shut Fruit Bat away now, while I still can.”

“No, no,” said Orma. “If he complies with your requests, he might be a resource rather than a threat. There are so many questions still unanswered. Why are you seeing him? How does he see you? Don’t squander this opportunity. You can induce visions: go looking for him.”

I ran my fingers over the spinet keys. That last suggestion was a bit much, but cutting Fruit Bat off completely didn’t feel right either.

“Maybe he’ll find a way to speak to you eventually,” Orma was saying.

“Or maybe I’ll travel to Porphyry someday, track him down, and shake his hand,” I said, smiling slightly. “Not until after Ardmagar Comonot’s visit, though. I’ll be too busy beforehand. Viridius is a terrible taskmaster.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” said Orma, apparently thinking me serious. “I might come with you. The Porphyrian Bibliagathon is supposed to be well worth seeing.”

I grinned at his library obsession and was still grinning when I crawled into bed. I couldn’t sleep; in my mind I was already traveling with my uncle, meeting Fruit Bat in the real world, and getting some answers at last.





Between staying up late and rising early for my morning routine, I got far too little sleep. I stumbled stoically through my duties, but Viridius noticed me struggling. “I’ll clean your pens,” he said, taking the quill from my unresisting hand. “You are to lie down on my couch and nap for half an hour.”

“Master, I assure you I’m—” A gargantuan yawn undermined my argument.

“Of course you are. But we must have you at full capacity for the Blue Salon this evening, and I don’t feel convinced that you’ve been listening quite carefully enough to my dictation.” He scanned the parchment where I’d been writing down his compositional ideas as he hummed them. His brows lowered and he turned slightly purple. “You’ve jotted it down in three. It’s a gavotte. Dancers are going to be falling all over each other.”

I intended to answer him, but I’d already reached the couch. It pulled me under, and my explanation turned into a dream about St. Polypous dancing a 3/4 gavotte with perfect ease. But then, he had three feet.





That evening I arrived at the Blue Salon early, hoping I might pay my respects, meet Viridius’s protégé, and leave before most people had even arrived. I saw my mistake at once: Viridius wasn’t there yet. Of course he wasn’t; he would likely come late, the old coxcomb. I would get no credit for coming if I ducked out before he arrived. All I’d done was given myself extra time to feel uncomfortable.

I’d always been useless at parties, even before I knew how much I had to hide. Large groups of semi-strangers made me clam right up. I anticipated standing alone in a corner shoving butter tarts in my mouth all evening.